Our district has a volume license of CS 6 Master collection. I recently started upgrading the iMacs in our computer labs to CS6, but the applications only work on the admin account. When I try to run the applications from a managed account, I get the user permission prompt stating that the user does not have permission to run the application.

If I select always allow, the application does not open.

If I click allow once, the application opens, but more permissions prompts come up for the applications specific components that have to run.

For Photoshop, for example, the user does not have permission for adobe_licutil, for AE, the mercury render engine, etc.

The application opens, but freezes (see error code below).

What I've done so far:

Ensured that the applications are checked off in the preferences so that the account has permission to run them, however, it appears that the user does not have permission for additional components which are not listed in system preferences and therefore cannot be checked off in system preferences.

This did not work. The account has permission to run the apps but the same problems (1 & 2 above) persist.

Selected all of the application folders and changed the permissions in the terminal (chmod -rf 777 on all folders). The account has permission for all files/components.

This did not work.

Changed the managed account to an admin account (allow user to adminster computer in system preferences) and all problems are fixed. All applications then open/run.

Solves the problem and all CS 6 apps run, however, we cannot have students use an account with admin privileges.

Changed the account back to a managed one, selected all CS 6 applications and utilities in the user account preferences, but the problems returned.

Any ideas on how this can be fixed?

All CS 6 applications result in the following error (the errors are essential identical, only the name of the application and reference to application specific components are different, not the entire log):

I'm also starting a thread on Apple's discussion boards to see if anyone there knows of a solution. I'll provide the link if anyone there comes up with a solution.

As I mentioned above, checking "allow user to manage this computer" on the managed account or opening the apps from an admin account fixes everything (all CS 6 apps will then run fine), so this is definitely a permissions issue. Unchecking the "Limit Applications" checkbox (so that no applications are limited) or checking to allow all applications and utilities does not fix the problem. I've used chmod to change all permissions in the Adobe folders (in Applications and Library).

None of the CS 6 applications open/run as long as parental controls are activated for the account, no matter what I've done.

After the permission prompt for the application itself comes up, these are some of the components subsequently throwing up the "you don't have permission to run" prompt:

Took your advice (1:30 hrs on the phone, no solution, but staff was surprisingly helpful).

At first I was told by the customer support rep that CS 6 requires an admin account in order for the apps to work. I then expalined why that does not make sense (we have never had this problem with previous version of CS 4-5.5). The rep then contacted someone else, and they tried to walk me through the steps that I've already taken (and described in this thread), so I gave them the link to this thread. The other person read it, and told the rep that they would get back to me in 24 hours.

This problem is easy to reproduce: Install CS 6 on any Mac with managed accounts, allow manage accounts to open CS 6 applications, and then try to open CS 6 apps from a managed account.

In addition to one other person who is having this problem (mimi10 above), I have been able to replicate this on every computer that I have installed CS 6 on (iMacs, MacPros...). If CS 6 is installed on a computer with managed accounts, the apps do no work unless you're logged in as an admin.

I'll continue to try to solve this until Adobe gets back to me (changing folder permissions, account preferences, repairing permissions with Disk Utility and running diskutil repairpermissions from the Terminal...etc).

Thanks for the info Carlo, that CS6 will not work with OS 10.6.8, but only with Lion. Extremely frustrated here with 450 Macs that I cannot run CS6 on. You can bet that I will take a very hard look at alternative applications for our students. I am wondering why I invested money in CS6. Why can't all of the vendors understand that we need software to run in a multi-user enviroment and play nicely together. It is interesting that Adobe lists the system requirements as 10.6.8 or 10.7 on their web site for CS6. I see that there are issues with 10.8 also.

CS6 can most certainly run on a non-admin account. I don’t profess to know the particulars of what types of user accounts it will work on but I would call Adobe back and make sure to get this escalate.

CS 6 definitely does not work in non-admin accounts under 10.6.8. I have reproduced this problem on various types of Macs (iMacs, Mac Pros). The application specific components (specially adobe_licutil) do not work (permissions problems) and the applications only work from an admin account (no permission problems).

I changed permissions on all folders, components, and applications in the non-admin accounts (including all adobe_licutil instances).

Installed CS 6 from a root account, etc.,

but nothing has fixed the problem.

I've already contacted Adobe (through phone support) and via e-mail regarding this problem. I was in contact with Jeff Wright (Case #0183353887), however, Jeff stated that he did not have access to a computer running SL and he could not replicate the problem on a VM machine running Lion. I can confirm that CS 6 works with no problems from non-admin accounts under Lion, but we cannot upgrade our computers because we depend on software that only works on Snow Leopard.

In addition to Bill, others have contacted me regarding this problem, so it is reproducible. Therefore, CS 6 is useless under 10.6.8 for those of us trying to use CS 6 in a lab setting where patrons cannot be given admin privileges and where the computers cannot be upgraded Lion.

This is also not a Mac OS X problem, since no such problem occurs with CS 5.5 or previous versions.

The very same problem here. I have 25 iMac's that are dead in the water right now. If we must upgrade from Snow Leopard, my question is whether we can jump to Mountain Lion. Does anyone know? In the meantime, I will register my complaint (disgust?) with Adobe Support.

This has happend on 3 brand new Mac Pros with clean installs of Snow Leopard. So a clean install of SL does not fix this. I'm glad that I had to install SL on our new machines (they came with Lion) because I would not be able to do clean installs on our lab computers to test this.

BTW, all of the CS 6 applications work on managed accounts if the "Limit Applications" option is deselected in Parental controls, but then you have a managed account that can open System Preferences, the terminal, etc. So this is a problem with the way CS 6 interacts with Parental Controls. Something is broken.

By question now is, how can we escalate this or get the attention of Adobe's software engineers? Tech support and Mr. Wright's help have not solved this issue (Jeff was great, but could not help).

Well, after an hour and a quarter on hold, I spoke to Adobe Support for over an hour, and after that support person tried his ideas, I referred him to this url. After a while he said he was escalating the problem. How far will that go? Don't know.

But we are researching getting a volume license for upgrading Snow leopard to Mountain Lion. That could be another bucket of worms, but our primary use for the iMac's is Adobe, so we have to do something. Time is short.

I uninstalled and put 5.5 back on for this year. Crunch time is here and it is time to cut bait. I wonder if next year the CS suite will only work on Windows 8 since Windows 7 will be an out dated OS??

I would agree with Bob's advice that you do a clean install of your Mac OS X environment. Then reinstall the Creative Suite. That will almost surely solve your problem.

However, I'm not as pessimistic as Bob, and my experience is that most Mac OS X users are able to do an in-place install to upgrade most of the time. (But you should do a backup before installation to revert to if necessary.)

The only reason Win XP is supported for so long is not because it has any special virtue, it's just that Microsoft screwed up so badly for many years with Windows Vista, and most users stuck with what they knew. And Adobe figures out what OS to support by the NUMBER OF USERS for that platform.

With all due respect Mr. Levine, this thread has nothing to do with the relative merits of Windows vs. OS X, so I have no idea what prompted that comment. Can we just stick to the issue/problem related to this thread (CS 6 and Snow Leopard) without bringing Windows into this? We are not switching to Windows, so this is irrelevant.

Mr. Werner: read post no. 11, a clean install did not solve this issue for me.

The fact is that, for whatever reason, CS 6 requires admin privileges to run on Snow Leopard and this is a problem for multi-user computer lab deployments.

Please accept my apology. Foolish of me not to re-read the thread so my comment should have been addresed to Bill, not you. Let's stick to the problem.

This is all very frustraing. I am reasonably certain that this problem falls squarely on Adobe (this is not an issue with SL, something in CS 6 is causing this problem). How many years has SL been out? Plus, we've never had this issue with previous versions of CS, so what has changed? Of course, there is a possibility that SL is causing this since CS 6 appers to work under Lion, but I don't think so.

The majority of Mac users are still using SL (something like 50% of installed base I think), so it is not like SL users are an insignificant percentage of Mac users.

@bbco1: some people have been having problems with Lion and Mountain Lion. I tested CS 6 on Lion and did not see any problems.

@Bill

We need to get our labs ready for September and were hoping to start supplementing our FCP 7 use with the new version of Premiere, so that is obviuously out of the question at this point unless Adobe or somone else figures out what the problem is. This version of CS 6 is apparently full of bugs.

"As for your statistics, given that only one or two people are here posting about this issue, it tells me it’s not quite as widespread as you think."

About 7 people that I know of are having this problem. Some have contacted me directly and have not posted anything here. All work in computer lab settings (where the issue is most likely to arise because of the need to use managed accounts). So we are a smaller subjection of the total number of Snow Leopard users, but the fact is that anyone using SL will not be able to use CS 6 apps from managed accounts.

"BTW, have you tried the Apple forums to see if anyone can help there?"

Yes. People having the same problem have posted there. No solution either.

In my case, twenty-five iMac's are involved. All came in with Snow Leopard. All then had CS4 installed. Other than Microsoft Office, no other products were installed except for three units. They ran this way for a year and a half until I installed CS6 and ran into this problem. I have ten other units that still have CS4.

Widespread or not, there are a number of institutions that have had their plans hampered by this problem.

OK. I called Adobe first thing this morning and my ticket had NOT been escalated as I had been told. Rather than bore you with the details, I insisted that this be escalated to second level. I just now got a call from 2nd level. Adobe acknowledges that there is an issue with 10.6, but they have no fix. They are trying to work with Apple. They hold out no particular hope that the problem will be fixed in the near future. But they know that 10.7 and 10.8 work and suggest that we upgrade. We will probably do that, although it is crunch time.

I'm trying to get my lab set up for the school year and am having the same problems. I'm using 10.8 server and as teh OS on my desktops and have yet to find a way to get CS6 apps to open under a managed account.

Continuation of #29 - I upgraded one of the iMac's to Mountain Lion and then held my breath to see if the other apps moved OK. They did, and now CS6 will run in Managed mode. Twenty-four more units and we are still OK. Four of them have Final Cut Pro and that seems to be OK also (I say "seems" because the teacher did a quick check to see, nothing extensive). The only other apps we have on the units are Microsoft Office 2008 and 2011.

As an aside, Parental Controls is still a pain. I had to set the student accounts to admin, fire up all the apps, then change the accounts back to managed. That cleans Parental Controls up, then of course I had to run through all the settings for each unit, then log on as the student and allow the things that still come up, such as a CS6 control app.

Not fun, didn't quite hit everything done before classes started, but we're OK until the next crisis.

I have CS6 Master Collection running just fine in a managed, non-admin account, on 10.6.8 machines. I am doing this via the local machine, without the use of a OS X Server. Does the problem just seem to be associated with using Parental Controls? Please let me know, I hope I can help

Does the account that you're running the apps from say admin or managed in system preferences? If the account is managed and all CS 6 apps run, how did you set up the managed account? What are your specs (what type of Mac are you using)? Details please.

If you checked "allow users to manage this computer" in system preferences it is not a managed account. Trying to set this up locally does not work.

I'm having the same same problem, when I open CS6 with a managed network user, running an external account, (on external HDD) I keep getting the message 'You don't have permission to run Adobe_licutil'.

I work at an FE college I have 4 labs of 10.6.8 client Macs which I'm managing with 10.6.8 OS X Server on a Mac Mini server using managed preferences through workgroup manager. I'm also running one 10.8 client as a test before moving all the labs over to Mountain Lion and the server to 10.8 OSX Server.

I found Adobe_licutil on the in two locations residing in /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Application Manager/LWA & in the P6 folder in the same location and allowed these and their respective folders to the managed groups/users I have but I still get the same message.

I have tried this on both the 10.6 and 10.8 clients but they are both the same.

Looking at what I can find online some people say moving to 10.8 has fixed this issue but it hasn't worked for me yet!

It seems crazy that CS6 won't work in a managed legacy OS X environment when Adobe say it will work with 10.6.8!

Would be really grateful of any help from anyone with this as I have students in and they can't access anything in the suite!

I'm now looking at rolling back to CS5.5 but is a hell of a pain to do now.

Because the same symptom that you have with Workgroup Manager and Adobe_licutil also shows up when Parental Controls are used, I suggest trying the same cure.

And because I'm not sure of the linkage with Workgroup Manager, I can only tell you what I have done with Parental Controls to refresh whatever it is that keeps the settings static.

I make the user an admin user, restart, logon as the user, and execute all the applications that are used normally. Then I go back and change that user back to Managed and redo the Parental Contols settings.

So (and I'm doing some educated guessing here), you might remove the settings in Workgroup Manager for that user or group, and then logon and execute the apps. Then restore the settings.

Please let me know if you are successful because I need to start using Workgroup Manager myself.

As I said ealier, I have CS6 Master Collection running just fine in a managed, non-admin account, in 10.6.8. The specs of the machine are unimportant. I have whitelisted (allowed) the following: /Library, and /Applications. Simple as that. No joke. Trying to blacklist too much is the problem here.

"If you checked "allow users to manage this computer" in system preferences it is not a managed account. Trying to set this up locally does not work."

Not true. OD or AD accounts are Managed, but may also be admins. But this is not the case in my Mac labs. I am doing this via the local machine.

"So (and I'm doing some educated guessing here), you might remove the settings in Workgroup Manager for that user or group, and then logon and execute the apps. Then restore the settings."

Just set the radio button (in Workgroup Manager, Applications) to "Never," save, and then start over using my method.

"I will have to confess that in this context, I don't know what whitelist means. But if it means that everyone has access to these folders, then it defeats the purpose that I am using it for. I did get Workgroup Manager to work, but unlike PC which allows you to OK a child app, WGM requires you to find the child app that fails and add it to the allowed application list."

You people are making things hard on yourselves here.

It is all very simple. One more time, just allow following:

/Library/

/Applications/

Then just disallow any applications that you want.

The problem described here is that non-admin users cannot run Adobe Creative Suite 6, correct? So, if the users are not admins, then they cannot copy anything to those folders. Hence, there is no issue. They cannot run applications from any other folder, either. Test it.